Attack on Christians is linked to Sonia Gandhi's rise in politics'.

 'Sonia symbolises Christian power in this country. In the coming months we will further raise the pitch of our attack against her.'

'Mother Teresa's motive was not service humanity) but conversion'.

'There is a Western design behind Amartya Sen getting the Nobel Prize'.

- Vishwa Hindu Parishad

General Secretary Acharya Giriraj Kishore.

These statements testify to the motives underlying the chilling violence unleashed by the Sangh Parivar affiliates, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, against the Christian community of Gujarat and Karnataka. Coming two months after similar attacks in October, its revival appears to be better focused, and lacks the alleged spontaneity that BJP leaders saw in it. Giriraj Kishore's statements - and those of Ashok Singhal in Jaipur before - raises disturbing questions: Is the attack on the Christians an attempt to reactivate the Hindutva plank, or is it aimed against Congress president Sonia Gandhi whose political fortunes are on the upswing?

More importantly, does this campaign enjoy the BJP's backing or is it merely muscle-flexing of the lunatic fringe in the Sangh Parivar.

The BJP had publicly disassociated itself from the VHP's diatribes ... Yet it has done little to restrain important leaders like Pramod Mahajan from issuing statements supporting the VHP

Congressmen ... in private have no doubts about whom the Sangh Parivar is in reality targetting ... "The VHP is testing waters: If the Hindu community reacts favourably to these initial attacks on Soniaji, they will only intensify it in the coming months", says a Congress leader.

Acharya Giriraj Kishore's statements have proved correct the ordinary Congressman's fears - hostility and differences between Hindus and Christians will be created and widened in the coming months. Kishore, however, disclaims clandestine arrangement with the BJP ....

Renowned political scientist Rajni Kothari feels the attack on Sonia Gandhi shouldn't be viewed in isolation. "The conversion issue", he says, "predates Sonia's rise in politics. The Hindu right wing was always averse to the missionaries, but their capturing of power has only widened the chasm."

Kothari thinks the main issue is that after the recent assembly election results the BJP is desperate to arrest the return of the minorities and Dalits to the Congress. Explains Kothari, "The BJP is attacking Sonia to stem the tide of subaltern classes to the Congress. Aware that their campaign against the Rome Raj has failed miserably in the past, they are now harping on her being Christian. This is the'most irrational of all political attacks.

Kothari feels the infighting in the Sangh Parivar has also been a significant factor in the current confrontation.

It is yet another attempt by the hardliners to embarrass a moderate Vajpayee. Since the ... abrogation of Article 370 and the Ayodhya temple - have been out on the back-burner, they have mounted pressure on him to stray towards extremity ... Sonia apart, .the criticism of Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has been equally shocking ...

So, in the VHP finding a new enemy in the Christian world, or the West? Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty of Delhi University interprets it thus: "Once you unleash a mobilisation strategy on religious basis it has its own momentum and even if senior BJP leaders wish to control it, they can't do it now"

For BJP apologists in the intelligentsia and the media, relentless attacks on Christians must have belied their hope of the saffron brigade becoming secular - or rational. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 3 January, 1999)

VHP: VP Giriraj Kishore's Views

Behind the attacks on Christians in the Dangs district of Gujarat ... is the pent-up anger of the local people against forced conversions by the Christian missionaries, who deliberately provoked the locals. They desecrated a Hanuman temple in Rajkot in August. They forcibly occupied a school building in Baroda .... Similarly, missionaries running a girls school in Surat asked the students to sing a pledge saying, "We all are sinners. Only Christ is our saviour" .... Even in the Dangs, a peaceful procession of the Hindu Jagran Manch was attacked by the Christians.

The media has grossly misrepresented the facts. The television pictures of gutted thatched houses - supposed to be churches - were fake. They were shot elsewhere. No church was burnt in the Dangs ...

The Manch is neither a constituent of the VHP nor is it a sister organisation ... We do share our ideology but nothing else.

Missionaries have been offering all kind of allurements - from marriage, money to land - to convert the innocent tribals. In Dangs, people were attacked because they were protesting against conversions.

Money comes ... from western countries, mostly from the USA ... Conversions have grown manifold ever since Sonia Gandhi became president of the Congress.

... We convert only first-generation converts. The Government doesn't allow the VHP to bring in funds from abroad whereas it allows the missionaries to do it ... Then they are free to teach anything, even their religious scriptures. And there is a big hungama if we decide to sing Vande Mataram or Saraswati Vandana.

.. BJP leadership ... is free to distance (itself) if it feels it as a necessity for running the government ... If the BJP supported our Ram Janmabhoomi movement, it was purely for vested interests. They wanted to increase their popularity, their vote share. It was a pure quid pro quo.